The Same Old Bipartisanship: The Hoyer/Cantor Letter to Obama on Israel

The AIPAC show came and went. But it left as its legacy the Steny Hoyer/Eric Cantor letter urging President Obama to let the Middle East fester.

If the past is prologue, 400 House members will sign it. Phones on Capitol Hill are ringing off the hook.

The letter's purpose is to thwart the president's efforts to ameliorate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to send a clear message to Obama. "When it comes to the Middle East, our guy is Netanyahu, not you. Don't even think about leaning on him when he comes to Washington next week."

The letter tells the president to let Israelis and Palestinians work it all out themselves, knowing that without the US playing the "honest broker" role, they won't. According to Hoyer/Cantor, our job is to serve as "trusted mediator and devoted friend of Israel." Huh?

"No doubt our two governments [Israel's and the United States'] will agree on many issues and disagree on others. The proven best way forward is to work closely and privately together both on areas of agreement and especially on areas of disagreement," it says.

Get that. In areas where we, heaven forfend, disagree, we hug it out with the Israelis. The Palestinians have as much say as African-Americans had on the Dred Scott decision. They are irrelevant and invisible.

There is not one word in the letter that calls on Israel to do anything, not one word about the settlements, the blockade of Gaza, the checkpoints that make it impossible for Palestinians to travel from one village to the next. The letter comes from bizarro world where Israel is suffering under the Palestinian yoke -- a world where Tel Aviv (God forbid) has been leveled and not Gaza, a world where Israelis are victims and Palestinians are occupiers.

This letter is a disgrace. Any Democrat who signs it is undercutting his own president to appease a powerful interest group.

One more thing. No matter how many sign this, no more than 25-30 Democratic House members believe this nonsense. This is utterly cynical, all about fundraising and avoiding flack from lobbyists who may not be able to defeat them -- but can hound them to death.

Twenty years on the Hill taught me that legislators will sign almost anything to get persistent well-heeled pests far away from their office. Maybe it's time for us to become those pests, letting them know that no matter how good they are on health care, taxes, choice, the environment or gay marriage, we will not forgive them if they undercut Obama's Middle East peacemaking.

Read the text. (There is a Senate version as well).

Comments

[Adeyemo Sodipo]

Israel.has nuclear weapons.

[Sentientbeing09]

"trusted mediator and devoted friend of Israel." Huh?

ha! ha!

That paradoxical sentence just about sums up the whole ongoing problem in Palestine / Israel - allowing Israel to continually frame the conflict through their eyes.
In the view of the screeching pro-Israel banshees and other anti-peace activists, showing even-handedness and impartiality is 'abandoning Israel'.

[Justtellthetruth]

Hear Hear.

[fizzette]

"...a devoted friend of Israel." I think it's time for an intervention. Friends don't let friends occupy and colonize other people's land and bomb their way into universal condemnation.

[WoodyTanaka]

This is absolutely appalling that American legislators would send such a letter. This is nothing more than an invitation for the USA to ensure more of the same that has caused such death and oppression on the Palestinians for decade upon decade. Hopefully Obama has the fortitude to stand up and finally says, "No. The US will not take sides. We will support the deal, not the parties."

Further, are Hoyer and Cantor, really blind to the fact that it is impossible to be "a trusted mediator and devoted friend to Israel" at the same time? Either the US takes a neutral course between the parties, and is thus a trusted and trustworthy mediator -- an honest broker -- or it can be in Israel's corner. It cannot, and should not, be both.

A repeat of the disgusting and embarrassing show of the US's representative being "Israel's lawyer," as was the case with Dennis Ross, is a mistake that I hope Obama will not make.

[Princeton123]

M J Roseberg, thank you!

[singwood]

Thank you M J Roseberg for lifting the veil a bit on how the Israeli tail manages to wag our congressional dog. The rightwing of America has done its best to run our democratic experiment into the ground. We don't need the efforts of the rightwing in Israel to further ruin our democracy. How does partiality serve justice? I guess that biblical parable about King Solomon and the disputed baby offers no insight to human behavior after all.

[blood1]

President Obama has promised to talk to our enemies...­I guess that includes those in Congress who want to support an ongoing war in Israel. So a "war" against Muslims was okay, but not their forefathers. Israel has started (and lost) 2 wars in the past decade. Israel says they are fighting for peace in the Middle East, but it seems that they are the ones causing all the conflict.

As I am neither Jewish or Muslim, it seems irresponsible for the US not to step in and mediate a peace deal..in which no one is a real winner. The treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli's has been terrible and the US should pressure them to resolve the situation by negotiation and if they refuse, then we should consider withdrawing our support, no matter how politically unpopular that will be.

It is time for Israel to stop ringing the bell about their bad treatment during the 2nd World War, okay, it was terrible, but at some point, they need to recognize that their righteous indignation is ringing hollow as they want to treat other religionous groups as they were treated and somehow justify it with the WWII argument.